“State employees are and must be held to the highest standard both professionally and personally,” said Ronni Reich, a spokesperson for the New York State Council of the Arts, where Peirez works. “We were notified of this situation and have commenced an investigation. This employee has been removed from the office and placed on leave until further notice and until the inquiry is resolved.”

Mother Marissa Rundell captured the incident on camera, and the video quickly made its rounds on the internet. The footage shows an annoyed Peirez complaining about having to sit next to a “crying baby” on the plane even though it doesn’t appear the child was crying at the time. When a flight attendant informed her that she couldn’t change seats, she threatened to have the employee fired and was soon removed from the flight.

"We ask that customers embrace civility and respect one another when flying Delta," the statement said. "This customer’s behavior toward a fellow customer on a flight from New York to Syracuse was not in keeping with those standards. We appreciate our Endeavor Air flight attendant’s commitment to Delta’s core values and apologize to the other customers on board Flight 4017 who experienced the disturbance."

The Boeing 777, which was carrying 363 passengers and 10 crew members, "declared an emergency due to a vibration in the right engine" before safely landing about 40 minutes later in Honolulu, the Federal Aviation Administration said, according to KHON. Emergency personnel were "standing by as a precaution," the Hawaii Department of Transportation said.

The number of complaints about air travel to the federal government last year — which included complaints about airlines, tour operators and other travel industry companies — was up 1.3 percent from 2016, according to statistics for the year released recently by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The DOT logged 851 complaints about treatment of disabled passengers in 2017 and 98 complaints about discrimination, according to the department’s air travel consumer report.

Spirit Airlines, an ultra low-cost carrier, had the highest rate of complaints. A total of 11,570 of the complaints were about U.S. airlines, down slightly from 2016, while more than 6,000 complaints in 2017 were about foreign airlines.

Here’s the ranking of U.S. airlines based on the rate of complaints received by the DOT in 2017:

Vista's crew hid potentially hazardous food, equipment and dirty dishware from the inspectors from the Centers for Disease Control, the Herald reported. The buffet included fruit flies, and on-board illnesses were not documented appropriately, according to the December report by the CDC's Prevention’s Vessel Sanitation Program.

Three failing grades on three different ships within two months is fairly rare for a major cruise line, the Herald story said. Most failures involve smaller ships from lesser-known cruise lines, a maritime lawyer said.

Carnival said that the health and well-being of its guests and crew is its "foremost priority." Spokesman Jennifer De La Cruz said the company has "taken immediate action to address the issues identified during recent ship inspections."

Though it hasn't been published by the CDC, the Triumph was re-inspected and received a passing score of 98, De La Cruz said.

Officials are most concerned about people who were at the airport between 6:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time on Jan. 10, especially those who have not been vaccinated.

The Department of Health says that those exposed, and who have contracted measles, could see symptoms as late as Jan. 31.

Symptoms include:

Rash

High fever

Cough

Runny nose

Red, watery eyes

Health Department officials say if you experience the symptoms, call a doctor before going to an office or emergency room so precautions can be taken to protect other patients from possible exposure since measles is highly contagious and can be spread through the air when someone either coughs or sneezes.

Along the way, winter storm weather affected the tracks and as the train approached the Savannah station, an announcement was made that a switch was frozen, Potischman said.

“The goal was to overshoot it and back in to the platform,” he said.

Instead, the switch apparently opened, causing the cars at the back of the train to derail.

Mike Zevon, another passenger, told the AJC the last three cars derailed.

Zevon took a photo from where he was seated, saying the 9813 car was about 4 feet to the left of where it should have been from his view.

“The last car is the baggage car and the other two are sleepers,” Zevon said. “No one is injured as of now. Last announcement said they were removing passengers who were ticketed for Savannah and they were still working on a plan to get us up north as safely as possible.”

There are about 311 passengers on board, Abrams said, and there were no reports of injuries to passengers or crew.

“The train is expected to continue north, with some of the sleeping car passengers being transferred to a different train,” Abrams said.

Potischman said people weren’t panicking.

“Things are calm,” he said. “We’re in the car; they’ve not made any announcements about evacuating.”

Potischman said he assumes he’ll be late getting to Brooklyn, but isn’t worried.

The plane landed safely shortly before 9:30 p.m. at Hartsfield-Jackson.

A Delta representative said the passengers heading to London would be placed on another flight, which was expected to take off around 11 p.m. Tuesday. That plane took off but then turned around again at about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.